To be the “students’ lobbyist” — that is, to stand up to the teachers unions and their hirelings in the Legislature and bring standards and accountability to public education in New York.

And yet there you stand, arm in arm with union bosses and — quelle horreur — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, all in an effort to hide vital information about teacher performance from parents and the public.

How very strange.

Stranger still was Cuomo’s criticism of this page for having dared to, well, criticize him for lining up with Silver & Co. on public-school accountability.

“I don’t believe this state will tolerate . . . extreme, ultra-conservative [politics] . . . with all due respect to some of the [editorial] positions of your paper,” the governor told Post State Editor Frederic U. Dicker yesterday.

Extreme? Ultra-conservative?

Us?

Yes, we believe there should be accountability and transparency in public schools. If that makes us “extremists,” so be it.

The fact is that New York spends more on education per student than any other state in the union — an average $18,126 each, according to the latest federal data.

That’s more than 70 percent above the national average — and no other state even comes close.

It’s also more than the average public university charges for room, board and tuition combined.

But for all the spending, New York is wallowing in the mire when it comes to classroom results.

Its high-school graduation rates stand an embarrassing 39th in the nation, according to the latest available data.

Meanwhile, college readiness among the state’s new high-school graduates fell from 37 percent in 2010 to 35 percent last year.

Now, that’s not yet Cuomo’s fault: He just got into town, educationally speaking.

But his second legislative session is expected to come to an end tonight — and, again, he’s lined up with the forces of reaction when it comes to a matter of great importance in both symbolic and practical terms: public-school sunshine.

And because we criticize this, we’re “extreme ultra-conservative[s].”

Well, somebody must stand up for the children, for the parents, for the taxpayers.